Reply #66: college is NOT a ticket -- it's an EDUCATION

[nashville_brook]

this isn't for everyone -- but it bucks the received wisdom, so i thought i would contibute:

when i was in school is was fashionable to get the mighty BUSINESS degree. my degree in philosophy and graduate work in social theory. i went into publishing and advertising by starting my own business -- THAT WAS MY TICKET. i took out 20K in loans for school and 30K in loans for my biz. the first 20 was for my mind -- the second 30 was for my future.

my husband played in a rock band and took classes in art history, phil and computer science -- but never graduated. his TICKET was being a businessman in the form of running a band and later running a newspaper.

here's the rub -- if we didn't have REAL EDUCATIONS we wouldn't have had anything to *contribute* in terms of starting either business. our first areas of business were in cultural production and having a solid education is very important to that. but no one cares when you send them your resume if you read Voltaire or not. but it matters a whole lot when your resume says "business owner" "manager" "editor" etc.

here's another aside -- my husband is now a software developer and we are able to be a one-income family. HE DOESN'T HAVE A DEGREE, and (ta da daDA) neither do many of the other computer geeks he works with. most of the people he works with came to computers from MUSIC -- so if any of you have sons or daughters who would rather play in a band than go to college full-time... encourage it! it's a great education in terms of being a TICKET. being in a band is a BUSINESS. and playing music exercises the part of the mind that also does logic-stuff that can be applied to areas like computeer science. music is a language. programming is a language. playing in a band is a buisness with marketing, distribution and production cycles. it teaches self-reliance. it's the best thing ever.

but take art history and literature, too. :)